by Sierra Dean
On the next attempt I dialed Mercedes’s number by memory, not trusting my speed dial.
“What’s wrong?”
I hadn’t said a word yet. “I…uhh. Cedes?”
“Who else? You called me. At one. What’s wrong?” In the background a masculine voice mumbled something and she replied, “It’s fine, go back to sleep.”
“Cedes, this is going to sound a little strange…”
“Like that’s a shocker.”
“Have you seen me today?”
She didn’t answer me for such a long time I said her name again. At last she said, “What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t a trick question. I need to know if you’ve seen me today.”
“No, I worked the day shift today. But we talked on the phone earlier. Tyler said you put on quite a show at the station tonight, though.”
“Tyler?” Was that a name to pair with the voice on the phone? It didn’t sound right for some reason, but at the moment now nothing was right.
“Tyler Nowakowski.”
I shook my head. Although she couldn’t see me, my silence was enough of an answer. When she spoke again her pitch was a little higher, and she sounded worried. “What’s your name?”
“Secret,” I replied with a snort. “As if I could possibly forget that.”
“Where do you live?”
“West 52nd Street.” When she didn’t respond, I added, “New York, New York.”
“Who are you dating?”
“No one.” Like she could ask me that. Gabriel had just left me. I wasn’t too keen to leap headfirst into the dating pool at this point. Or, you know, ever. But who the hell had I called by accident? It definitely hadn’t been Gabe’s voice. Or Keaty’s. “No one?” I said again, only this time it was a question.
“I don’t think Lucas Rain would like to be called a no one.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t, but I’ve never met him so I don’t know if I really care what… Wait. You’re not saying?” Laughter pealed out of me. “Nice try. I’ll believe I’m dating a billionaire when pigs sprout wings.”
“The bacon’s been flying for about a year now, sweetie. Where are you?” The serious tone of her words made my laughter fade immediately.
“I’m just leaving Columbia.”
“The hotel?”
“No, the school.”
“At one in the morning?”
“Long story.” I could only assume that was true.
“I have no doubt. I want you to hail a cab and meet me at the station. Have you talked to Keats?”
“I tried to call him, but some strange guy answered.” A cab drew near, and I raised my arm. The air inside was about a zillion degrees too hot. The driver smelled of paprika and cigars, and combined with the warmth it made the cab feel about as cozy as a harem in Hell.
Mercedes was speaking to the male voice. They were discussing something in hushed tones. I could have made out the words if I tried, but I was too preoccupied with my own thoughts at the moment.
“Cedes,” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
“There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?”
“Yeah.”
The 76th Precinct station looked as tired and worn down as I felt. Old gray concrete walls were streaked with iron stains from snow melting off the old metal roof, and the steps were cracked and stooping.
Inside, a bitchy-looking blonde shot me a glare I wasn’t certain I deserved and didn’t ask me why I was there. She resumed typing the minute I was through the front doors. Unannounced I made my way to the main work floor and scanned the desks for the dark halo of Cedes’s hair. If she was coming from the West Village and I’d woken her with my call, I had probably beaten her here.
A good-looking brunet with strong shoulders and a toned chest that filled out his white dress shirt in a delightful way caught my eye from across the room. His thick black brows knit together, and he cocked his head to the side like a German shepherd who didn’t understand a verbal command.
He stood and started crossing the sea of desks to meet me.
Shit.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, not angry just mystified.
“I, uh… Detective Castilla wanted me to—”
The man ignored me and continued. “Did you find something out about Holbrook?”
“I’m here for…Gabriel Holbrook?”
“Am I holding a different Holbrook on murder charges? Get with the program, McQueen.”
Oh, Jesus, this guy knew me. I hadn’t the faintest clue who he was, and he was talking to me like we’d known each other for a million years. Or at least long enough for him to think it was okay to talk to me like I was a retard.
Which, given the circumstances, was sort of warranted.
But the other part of his sentence was significantly more important right then. They were holding my ex on murder charges. Was I supposed to know this? The sexy detective seemed to think I was part of the investigation.
I should wait for Mercedes, but this was too much to ignore.
“Can I see him?”
“You gonna do a little more of that voodoo you do?”
“What?”
“The thing where you like…I don’t know exactly. You touched him, and suddenly he was spilling his guts. It was fucked up. I’ve never seen anything like it. But damned if it didn’t work.”
I didn’t have a single fucking clue what this guy was talking about. “Can I see him?” I asked again.
Detective Sexypants shrugged. “I guess so.”
He led me to the basement where a grouchy bald guy made me sign a sheet and relinquish my weapons, including a knife I’d never seen before. Tonight kept getting more and more messed up as the hours progressed. Or at least I figured that was the case. I couldn’t remember anything before waking up in the classroom, so maybe this was the eye of the storm.
The detective showed me into a room with four cells and then left me, saying, “If you need anything, I’ll be out here.” He still looked perplexed. I probably wasn’t acting like he expected me to, but I had no idea how I was supposed to act. Without my memories, I was floating alone with a whole ocean of uncertainty threatening to swallow me whole.
Gabriel was in the last cell, curled up on his side with a shoddy gray blanket half kicked off him and his arm slung over his eyes to block out the lights. It was pretty cruel to leave lights on overnight, but prisoner comfort never seemed to be a huge priority to the cops, for obvious reasons.
“Gabriel?” I approached the cell cautiously, afraid to touch the bars.
He grumbled, lifting his arm, and peered at me through eyelids gluey with sleep. His normally tidy hair was sticking up at a thousand different angles. It looked like he hadn’t washed it in a few days.
Seeing him wrenched my heart, because it was the final confirmation of how far removed from my own reality I was. It felt like only weeks ago he’d walked out of my life, and the heartbreak lingered fresh in my memory. But this Gabriel, the one staring at me from a police-station cot, was at least two or three years older than the man I remembered. He’d lost the pleasant roundness in his face and was all lean muscle and cruel angles.
“Temple?”
I wanted to cry. My bottom lip trembled, and I had to look away from him. This was the icing on the cake. Up until this point I’d been able to coast by on pretending this was weird, but there had to be a simple explanation. A spell gone wrong, something that could be easily corrected and my life would magically snap back to normal.
But my ex-boyfriend was in a cage, apparently for killing someone, and people I couldn’t remember meeting were talking to me like they knew me. It was too much. I was a simple creature, problems were meant to be killed, and there was nothing here I could shoot at since some fat, bald cop had taken my gun away.
Gabriel had risen and was standing by the cell door. He looked worried, but there was a peculiar twist to his expression. He wasn’t looking at me like I was
crazy. Instead his concern appeared to be born of the fear family.
“What happened?”
My head shook without me telling it to, and I shrugged like an idiot. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
Gabriel’s face went white. Not just pale, but true ashy-white. Dead white. “What. Happened?”
“I don’t know,” I screamed, my voice bouncing off the walls and making me sound more commanding than I meant to. “I woke up at Columbia, and—”
“Come here.” He was reaching through the cell bars, and his voice was forceful.
I moved closer but stayed out of range of his hands. His eyes were a little too wild for me to trust him. Not to mention he was locked up for being a murderer. Didn’t really bolster trust.
“You know something.” It wasn’t a question. Gabriel’s reactions spoke louder than words, and he’d always been a terrible liar when he had to look me in the eyes.
“Did you talk to Mayhew?”
“Who’s Mayhew?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.”
Gabriel slammed his palms against the cell, making the metal door rattle. “Fucking goddamn.”
“What?”
“Did he touch you?”
I wanted to reply with some tart, indignant comment about how I think I’d remember if someone touched me, but I couldn’t. I didn’t remember anything. “I don’t know. Gabriel, tell me what’s going on.”
He opened his mouth but nothing came out. His lips tried to form words, but after several failed attempts, he let out a defeated cough. “I can’t. I can’t tell you anything.”
“What are you doing down here?” Mercedes had joined us at some point, but I hadn’t heard her enter. She wore a men’s plaid shirt and a battered pair of blue jeans tucked into a pair of Sorel winter boots. She hadn’t bothered to brush her hair, and it was borderline afro in size and curl volume.
“Gabriel’s been arrested.” I pointed to the man in the cell.
“I know.” Behind her, the dark-haired detective was watching us quietly. “You remember Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember Tyler?” She nodded at Detective Sexypants.
“Should I?”
Cedes nodded. “You’ve known him for a while.”
I backed up to the empty cell behind me and slid to the floor, pulling my knees up to my chest. Gabriel was still standing at the bars of his cell, and his expression could only be described in one way. Guilt. He looked so guilty it made me want to hurt him.
“What do you know?” I tried to infuse as much menace as possible into my words, but they came out strained and desperate. “You need to help me.”
He shook his head and slunk back into the cell, stumbling against the edge of his cot. Once he was sitting, he wouldn’t meet my eyes again and kept muttering, “I can’t. I can’t.”
Mercedes sat next to me and placed her arm around my shoulders. Tyler stood in the door with his arms crossed and continued to act as a silent observer. I suspected he wanted to say something but was demonstrating exceptional restraint by keeping his mouth shut.
“I called Lucas,” Cedes said. “He’s on his way to come get you.”
I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of trusting a guy I didn’t know, but I was willing to do just about anything at this point if it meant I wouldn’t feel helpless anymore.
“Why did you come to see Gabriel?” she asked again.
“Because I know him.”
She nodded, her hand tightening on my shoulder. “You think he knows what’s happening to you?”
I stared into the cell, but Gabriel wouldn’t face us. “He looks guilty.”
“He is guilty,” Tyler interjected, breaking his silence.
Mercedes glared at him. “Not the best time, Novak.”
Tyler grunted and returned to the antechamber where I’d left my weapons. I leaned into Mercedes and let her familiar scent make me feel as normal as I could right then. She stroked my hair, and we sat quietly for a good ten minutes before being interrupted again.
A man entered the room, and the moment I laid eyes on him my pulse quickened. My whole body screamed at me that I knew this man and he belonged to me. Yet my brain drew a total blank. He was tall, but not as tall as Tyler, and where the latter was dark-haired, the new man was blond, his blue eyes shining with worry.
He was so damned pretty it hurt. No wonder my body wanted to lay claim to him.
“Secret?” he ventured tentatively. “Do you know who I am?”
God, I wished I could say yes. Instead I admitted, “No.”
The man exchanged worried looks with Mercedes. “How long has she been like this?”
“She called me just after one.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked me.
I tried to recall, but whenever I thought I could hold down a memory it would slip through my fingers like smoke. “I don’t know.”
“She remembers me and Keats. And she remembers Gabriel.”
The new man, presumably Lucas, seemed to notice Gabriel for the first time. “Why would she remember this guy? Does she even know him?”
“She and Gabe here go way back,” Cedes said, with a little more emphasis than she needed to. Lucas definitely got the gist of how well Gabriel and I knew each other. If he and I were really a couple, we apparently hadn’t gotten around to chatting about our past relationships.
Judging by the stink eye Lucas was giving Gabriel, it might have been a good thing we hadn’t discussed our former lovers. Lucas looked to be the jealous type.
“He knows something,” I said again, sounding more than a smidgeon on the crazy side. Gabriel had raised his head finally, but now he and Lucas were locked in a staring contest. There were a lot of unspoken threats being bandied back and forth. The air was thick with testosterone. “He knows what’s wrong with me.”
That got through to Lucas. He broke eye contact with Gabriel long enough to look at Cedes and I again. “Detective Castilla, would you mind if Gabriel and I had a word? Under supervision, of course.” He pointed to the closed-circuit cameras mounted in each corner of the room. Cedes hesitated like she might refuse him but finally nodded and pulled me to my feet.
“I’m going to be out in the hall,” she told him.
“Understood.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
If I’d been in my right mind, I would have known what a bad idea it was to leave Lucas alone with Gabriel.
From the chair Cedes had propped me in, I couldn’t see Lucas or Gabriel, but I had no problem hearing them. Lucas’s voice was soft but commanding, the voice of a born politician. Gabriel’s tone had an edge of worry to it, overpowering his usual cocky certainty. They hadn’t gotten beyond the awkward greetings and already Lucas had my ex all wound up. Impressive.
“What do you want?” Gabriel asked.
“I want to know what you did to her.”
“Me?” The word was a nervous squeak. “How could I do anything? I’m in here.”
Metal groaned and footsteps skittered across concrete.
“She may not remember anything, but she says you know something. I’ll take her word over yours any day.”
“She’s crazy.”
Gee, Gabe, thanks for the vote of confidence.
“Tell me what you know.”
My gaze flicked to the on-duty officer. He was watching the closed-circuit feed with great interest but made no moves to go into the room. Mercedes was on her cell phone, but I couldn’t listen in on her conversation without losing focus on Lucas and Gabriel’s.
“Look, you’re a powerful guy, right? Rich, good-looking.” Gabriel’s voice had changed again. It was smoother now, the crooning song of a con man. He’d used that voice when we first met. He wasn’t scared anymore, because he’d spotted a weakness in Lucas and now he wanted to exploit it. I knew Gabriel too well to mistake his intentions for anything else.
Lucas didn’t reply, but Gabri
el continued undeterred. “What are you doing with a girl like Secret?”
“I love her.”
My stomach tightened, and aching pain stabbed me in the abdomen. Why did hearing Lucas’s words make me feel so guilty?
“I love her too,” Gabriel said, but the snort at the end made me believe otherwise.
“You don’t know her.”
“I know her better than you.”
Lucas snarled, a purely animal sound that made the hair on my arms and neck stand on end. Both Cedes and the desk officer looked a little on edge.
“You don’t think so?” Gabriel asked.
“I know you don’t.”
I could almost hear Gabriel’s self-assured smile, and it made me shiver. What was he thinking? He didn’t know my biggest secret, so I didn’t have to worry about him spilling that. So what was he dangling over Lucas’s head?
“You come from a big family, Mr. Rain?”
Again Lucas didn’t answer him.
“Guy like you,” Gabriel persisted. “Lots of money, proud family name. You strike me as a guy who would want kids.”
My blood ran cold, and I was suddenly unable to breathe. He wouldn’t.
Cedes saw my reaction, but since she couldn’t hear their conversation, she had no way to know why I was overcome by panic.
“What’s wrong?” She crouched in front of me, taking hold of my clammy hands. “Jesus, Secret, you’re freezing.”
I wanted to tell her to shush, but I couldn’t move even to speak. My whole being was trained on hearing what Gabriel said next.
“Of course I want kids,” Lucas said.
“I hope you don’t want them with her.”
Son of a bitch. He was really going to do it.
“What are you talking about?”
My feet remembered how to function, and I stumbled through the door so quickly I almost tripped over myself. I stopped next to Lucas, our sides touching, but the warmth from his body did nothing to stave off the cold I felt.
“Gabe, don’t.”
Gabriel smiled at me, and there was a twinge of sadness in the turn of his mouth. It was as if he didn’t want to be saying the things he was saying. So why didn’t he shut the hell up?
